Coca-Cola asked fashion designers to redesign a limited-edition bottle in an effort to raise money following last year’s devastating earthquake in Abruzzo, Italy. Italian designers including Marni, Moschino, Ferreti, Versace, and Etro showcased their creations at a fashion show in Milan.

The colorful designs are all part of Coca Cola Light’s ‘Tribute to Fashion’ charity project in Italy.

Milan residents can buy Coke Light in these bottles now with profits funding scholarships for young women affected by the earthquake.

Here is a video of showing the new bottles in action:

Video by Francip81

Photos by Getty Images, Femme Thing, and Splash

[Via NYMag and Metro]

In a move that aims to enhance the storytelling experience, HBO has unveiled a four-panel video installation called the HBO Cube of the HBO Imagine campaign. Located in the Meatpacking District in New York City, the Cube is a unique new installation that offers four different perspectives on the same scene simultaneously. In telling the same story on four distinct points of view, each side of the cube stands alone as an engaging film, and as a piece of a larger puzzle. As viewers move around the cube, they watch the story unfold from different perspectives, forming different perceptions, and often misperceptions, of the characters and plot.

“There is always a twist and turn on things. Instead of creating a linear 30-second piece, the story is told at four different angles and you can see how parts of the plot can be hidden. But as you walk around the cube you will see that each shot of the cube is part of a much bigger story. ” said Greg Hahn, Executive Creative Director at BBDO.

The video cube was envisioned by BBDO and The Barbarian Group. It features two films, Heist and The Affair by Noam Murro of Biscuit Films. Each are two minutes in length and played twice successively on a rotating basis.

“We wanted to engage people in storytelling in a way that lets them explore and process the information. To be open to these experiences, it’s in HBO’s DNA. They want to show you something in a fresh perspective. It’s bold and it’s an extension of who they are,” replied BBDO’s Executive Creative Director Michael Smith.

If you can’t physically go and view the cube, you can view the interactive version online. The Barbarian Group created HBOImagine.com, a microsite that features an interactive storytelling experience where you choose what films you want to see. There are over 41 pieces of content, including short-and-long-form video, audio files, and news stories that are connected to each other like a web. The user can navigate the story by unlocking and viewing the content. As you uncover the characters, the connections and the motivations driving them are revealed. The interactive feature is great because like in gaming, the story develops deeper with more surprises as you watch the layers of the plot unfold.

The opening attracted a huge crowd and people were certainly interested in display. Although a few colleagues that I spoke to said they did not follow the cube or the plot through to the end of the short films, I still think it’s an ingenious idea. Playing with the plot angles, its interactive site pulled me in for a good 15 minutes which is an incredible amount of time. (Five seconds is the average time a person spends on a website, when captivated, before moving on to something else.)

The HBO Cube is currently displayed in New York (Gansevoort and Little West 12th) from Sept 17-19. It is set to travel to Philadelphia (Old City District) and Washington D.C. (Plaza at Adams Morgan) in October.

HBO Imagine

Thonet, the oldest furniture brand in the world and the German manufacturer of high-quality furnishings, is producing a simplified form of bentwood and tubular steel furniture for the Japanese retail chain Muji. The products are manufactured entirely at Thonet’s headquarters in Frankenberg, Germany to the company’s customary high quality standards.

The first models are reminiscent of those bentwood chairs that were the cornerstone on which the Thonet success story was established. The most famous bentwood chair, No. 14 is celebrating its 150th birthday and is probably the oldest industrial product still in production today. The chair is sold with range of tables that has a convincingly understated elegance, and it marries perfectly with the expressively styled chair. The English designer James Irvine, who is now working and living in Milan as creative director at Thonet, is responsible for the reinterpretation of the bentwood furniture.

In addition to the bentwood tradition, the “Muji manufactured by Thonet” collection also features the second revolutionary trend of the Thonet brand, the company’s tubular steel furniture tradition dating back to the 1920s. An iconographic tubular steel cantilever chair is sold alongside a desk and a range of side tables that have a convincingly effortless style and cool beauty like the original models. This collection was created by the German designer Konstantin Grcic.

The sight of teachers confiscating electronic games from their students is about to become old school. Nintendo has announced a classroom version of the popular Nintendo DS Lite hand held machine.

Starting February 2010, the company plans to supply schools with an assortment of Nintendo DS Lites, PC’s with Wi-Fi connectivity, and special educational software developed with Sharp. The idea behind this is to enable students to work on assignments in class, and send their work on the DS Lites to the teacher’s console. When ready, the completed work can be sent back the same way which neatly reduces paperwork. All information is transmitted wireless.

Considering the DS touchscreen and stylus features are ideal for writing Japanese, gaming extensions in the classroom could work well in the future. This is an indicative sign that Nintendo is moving beyond gaming as sales sag in Japan.

Bijin-tokei is a Japanese website that photographs girls on the street in real-time and with non-stop updates. Every minute of the hour, cute girls are featured holding up a blackboard with the time written in a white marker. Bijin-tokei call themselves “a 1 minute automatic update site” and refreshes a new photograph every minute. Details like the girl’s name, birthday, hometown, height, blood type, occupation, favorite website, and even body measurements are recorded for a heightened voyeur appeal.

The photos appear to be taken in shopping centers around Shibuya and Harajuku in Tokyo, featuring what seems to be real girls with a fashionable edge. Though bijin-tokei is an amusing concept and interesting to share with friends, the purpose of the project still remains a mystery. It’s also available to purchase as an iPhone app.

bijin-tokei (English)

With a peculiar sculpture piece based on a system of “Dendroids,” American artist Roxy Paine has created a 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Roof Garden. It is an interesting combination of concepts – Paine uses both mechanical means and the innate logic of natural forms to create his “Dendroid” tree-like sculptures. Like in nature, these are a series of vascular networks, tree roots, mushrooms, and fungal mycelia. His meticulous research and observation of a variety of tree species help him to understand the nuances of how a tree grows. Paine has said:

“I’ve processed the idea of a tree and created a system for its form. I take this organic majestic being and break it down into components and rules. The branches are translated into pipe and rod.”

Employing the “language” that he has invented for each of these fictive species, Paine’s trees are “grown” through a laborious process of welding together the cylindrical piping and rods and manifests itself with the green and concrete surroundings of New York.

Maelstrom (2009) is Paine’s largest and most ambitious work to date and is showing now until October 25 at The Metroplitan Museum of Art Rooftop Garden.

Installation images of Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom

Installation footage of Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom
[via The Met]

New York now probably has the grandest Wi-Fi hotspot in the country. Yesterday, the New York Public Library opened its elegant Edna Barnes Salomon Room in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building as a reading room specifically for online users. In recent years, the room has been used mostly for special exhibitions and rental space for private engagements.

Built in 1911, the Schwarzman Building houses the library’s research collection. The Beaux-Arts room is decorated in the classical style with 4,500 square foot of rectangular space and boasts dark maple wood floors. It has seating for 128 people on brown leather chairs and custom-made black walnut tables, according to the library.

You can bring your own laptop or borrow one for free starting July 28.

This augments the Library Renaissance trend by offering technology and connectivity in a historical space during times of need.

[via LA Times]